Mistress

I rush through the preflight check, eager to be rid of Madison, of Diana’s family, of the lady in black, of Diana’s diminutive drunk of a little brother, with his furtive reference to the most powerful Chinese lobbyist on the Hill.

Chocks up, preflight checklist complete, tower cleared for takeoff. I never go to the big airports. Nearly all airports are public, and they can’t refuse to let small aircraft land or take off, but they can leave a tiny plane like mine on the tarmac until I’m roasted or rusted through. Dane County Regional gets me off the ground in an hour.

Flaps up and trim set for takeoff, I release the brakes and open the throttle to full. About fifteen hundred feet down the runway, I hit sixty-five miles per hour and the wheels are bouncing before we’re airborne, climbing at full power.

The ground falls away beneath me. Funny how the fire escape at Diana’s makes me shake with fear, but throttling up to eighty knots and hurtling through space, supported by faith in the invisible power of lift, is no problem.

I reach altitude and check the GPS, banking east and settling into the flight plan, which will take me to Mansfield, Ohio, for a quick refueling stop before the last leg home.

The engine suddenly brings my mind back to the moment. It sputters. Coughs. I change the fuel mixture to rich, adding more fuel to the mix of fuel and air, and turn on the carburetor heat. The temperature at the airport was ninety degrees when I took off. There can’t be ice in the carburetor. Can there?

The engine roars for a moment. Then there is a horrible clatter, like the time we were sitting in the café on G Street, Diana, and a city bus making a right turn tore the side mirrors off two parked cars, and you laughed at the crowd that gathered.

And then, more horrifying than any noise, there is silence. I hear the wind rushing past and nothing more.

“The Sound of Silence” is a nice song, and a nice thought, too, in moments of contemplation or serenity. But it’s not a nice sound when you’re nine thousand feet off the ground in a single-engine Cessna.

Easy, Ben. You know what to do.

Airspeed at eighty miles per hour. Switch fuel tanks. Mixture to full rich. Carb heat on-check. Primer in and locked. Ignition to left, then right, then…start.

I said, Start.

Nothing. Not even a click.

That engine is not going to start.

I try again, just to be sure.

My heartbeat kicks into my throat. There are no atheists in Skyhawks that lack engine power. She’s a sturdy aircraft, but she’s no glider. Watertown is too far. There’s no way I can coast all the way there.

This plane is going down.

Chapter 16

Breathe in, Ben. Fly the plane.

Look around.

Wind out of the north. I need to find a field. This plane doesn’t need a runway, remember? That crazy kid from flight school landed his on the eighteenth green. Oh, how I’d love to be playing golf right now.

I have a rendezvous with Death

On some scarred slope of battered hill,

When Spring comes round again this year

And the first meadow-flowers appear.

Just find someplace flat, Ben.

I bank left, into the wind. At least my instruments are still working. For now.

Seat belt and harness tight. I can do this. Just like power-off landings during training. Except without the pesky runway.

I see a long stretch of two-lane highway, and I’m sorely tempted. No, Ben. Power lines. They’d tangle you up like a fly in a spiderweb.

The most beautiful sight I’ve ever seen appears in front of me-a level pasture, dead ahead. Never have I been so happy to see a bunch of cows.

I can make it. I prepare for landing: Airspeed down to sixty-five knots. Fuel shutoff valve on. As if that mattered. But an engine fire on landing would complicate things.

Focus, Ben. This can still have a happy ending.

Fly the plane. Flaps down. Airspeed to sixty knots.

I tune the radio to 121.5 MHz. That’s one I never thought I would see on the dial-the international aeronautical emergency frequency.

I open the frequency, and with a voice so calm that it doesn’t sound like my own, I say the words that haunt a pilot’s dreams:

“MAYDAY, MAYDAY, MAYDAY. Watertown tower, this is Skyhawk three-one-six-zero Foxtrot. Repeat: Skyhawk three-one-six-zero Foxtrot with total engine failure attempting a forced landing in a pasture. Last known position 43º6′46″ north, 88º42′13″ west, at fifteen hundred feet, heading twenty degrees. One person on board. I require immediate assistance.”

The radio silence compounds the silence of the engine as the seconds tick away. Don’t panic, Ben. Fly the plane.

The radio crackles to life. “Cessna three-one-six-zero Foxtrot, this is Watertown tower. I read you five by five. Assistance is en route.”

Okay, great. Now, if you could please get here in the next five seconds and toss me a parachute.